Giving up OGame, again

 I think my last "going to stop playing OGame" post was in about 2019. And I probably had a few more before that too. I'm not sure why I keep coming back to it, probably because I've invested about six years into my current account. I'm ranked #403 in the world (last time I checked) but that's probably more due to other people moving on rather than due to any great skill or effort on my part. I doubt I'll be able to get much higher or crack into the three hundreds due to the effort levels between each rank. I'm happy when I build a big mega-ship on each of my planets, but I've been attacked by players with fleets of thousands of mega ships (and that's fleets with an "s" - plural).

The downside (upside?) of the game mechanics is that when you get attacked, the attacker can destroy all your defenses, blow up all your ships and steal all your resources, but the resource generators on the planets are untouchable. So if you get totally wiped out, you can just rebuild. So long as you're willing to invest the time and effort, there is no lose condition. By that same metric, there is also no win condition either. You can only keep playing, or stop playing.

So I'm back to giving up, again, The current plan is to keep logging in every now and then in order to keep the account active so that others can raid the planets. I'll probably log in at some stage and see a pile of resources there and start rebuilding again, but for now I'll try and keep my hands off it.

Because when it comes to games like this, the line between time "invested" and time "wasted" is very thin. On the plus side, I never spent any money on it, so there's that.

OGame - big hit

 And by "big hit", I mean "got hit, big time".

After my post from a few weeks ago, I've drastically cut back how much attention I'm giving to OGame. It was kinda fun for a while but then it started becoming more like work. Funnily enough, since I'd stopped giving it as much attention, I went higher in the rankings due to me letting more resources build up and then investing them in construction (which can't be destroyed) rather than ships or defences (which can).

I logged in this morning to have a look and see how it was going. All my planets had been attacked, every single one.

Meh, not that I care that much. I spent a bit of time and the resources that were left propping up the mess but it's kind of hard to use a fleet of fifty ships to fight off attacks of thousands of ships. I'm guessing my account attracted the attention of the bigger players, or one of the larger alliances.

I'll keep logging in every seven days or so (after spending several years building it all up it's kinda hard to let go) in order to keep it active, but it looks like my account is going to end up as a farm for others to constantly attack for resources.

OGame

 And I'm done, again.

Got a fair way into the game, not sure how long I was playing this time around (several years at least) but it's gotten to the point where it's more like work than relaxing. It's been a long time since it was actually fun, so I'm not sure why I kept playing.

I'm now in the top 500 world wide, but that's mostly from just sitting tight and building defences. I'm now at the level where the high-end players will send fleets of thousands of ships against my planets or send hundred of missiles from multiple planets against my single planet. I'm not dedicated enough to get much higher, and there's no win condition - it's a "perpetual war" type game, with a pay to win component. I'm definitely not giving them my credit card details!

It was an interesting ride, I did have some fun back in the day but I think I've gotten to the point where I'll enact the plan I had earlier - just log in now and then to keep my account active, but not actively play or build defences. I'm sure there are better things I can do with my time.

OGame - finally attacked

 It took a while, but after a pretty long build up, my stockpile of resources was enough to grab some bigger players' attention and they smushed me.

Attacked by nearly two million ships, it wasn't much of a surprise that my few thousand got pushed aside. I don't know what my total resources that I had on hand at the time that I was attacked, but I last recorded over eight hundred million mixed resources sitting there. Normally I get attacked when my resources get over about twenty million sitting there unattended.

The original plan was once the place got smashed, I'd just let it sit and get attacked and just log in once a week or so - leave the planets producing so that others could attack it. After about six years or so it's a bit hard to let it go, though I don't really get anything out of it anyway. We'll see how it goes (though I did log in this morning >.< ). 

OGame

Winning at OGame

For those that don't know about it, OGame is an browser based mmo where you enter numbers into boxes. It's more fun than it sounds, especially in the middle stages.

Simple enough game - gain resources by harvesting on your planet, steal them from other players or buy them with your credit card. Spend resources on defences, space ships or bonuses.

It starts of easy enough but everything keeps costing more the higher you develop. Such as, improving engines from level 1 to level 2 might cost 200 but going from level 2 to level 3 might cost 400. By the time you're getting to level 15 it's costing millions.

Not that collecting that much is the issue, but if you leave too much lying around on your planet, you'll get attacked by other players who'll break your defences and nick your resources.

What the enemy can't do is destroy your planet or your capacity to produce more resources. So even if all your planets get attacked, all your ships destroyed and all your defences smashed - you can't really lose. Which also means you can't really win either...

The only ways to win are to a) stop playing b)continue playing indefinitely, or c)reach some artificial target.

Today I reached my target of getting a moon on all my planets. There's an economic limit to how many planets you can have (I reached 9) and the only way to get a moon is to have a bunch of ships blown up in orbit so the debris can form a moon. And it's random, so you could have a truly epic battle that results in a bunch of debris and no moon.

So on that happy note, I can now declare victory and stop playing. :D Accounts are deleted after about a month of inactivity, so I might log in on occasion just to keep the planets producing so other players can harvest the resources.

Back for another round

I'd jumped out the first time many moons ago after reaching my goal. I went again for another round not long after. Time for round three.

I've joined up on OGame again. A frustratingly slow internety game which is kind of amusing and happily low bandwidth.

I managed to build a Death Star first time around (which was promptly destroyed). We'll see how far I get this time.